Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Schoeller-Bleckmann earnings call for the first half of 2024. As usual, I do this call together with Campbell MacPherson, who is the COO of SBO since the beginning of the year. As usual, we will talk about our financials. We will talk about the performance of the first half of this year. We will talk about business highlights, market environment, as well as for the outlook, and this is usually followed by a Q&A session. Afterwards, when we do the Q&A, please raise your hand, and we are more than happy to take your questions. The disclaimer you will also find on our website. We are going to skip that.
Today, I would like to start different compared to the standard presentation. I would like to start with a reflection of the first half of this year. We are now since more than seven months in charge. What have been the key themes that we were working on? How do we reflect the first half of this year and also going forward? To start with, I would like to start with the operational priorities. Because, and you see it already on that slide, addressing the challenging U.S. market environment was one of our key topics in the first half of this year. Because the first half of this year is a mixed bag of challenges and opportunities, and the U.S. market clearly was a challenge.
The U.S. market developed weaker than initially thought than we had on our expectations at the end of last year. This was predominantly impacting our U.S. business, predominantly our U.S. rental business, and this put pressure and challenges clearly on our earnings, which is also reflected in the result for the OE division. Because AMS continued to develop excellently, but the shortfall in our performance was driven by the OE division, was driven by the U.S. market. We have addressed those issues. We have clearly addressed those issues with clear and decisive actions that have been predominantly also implemented in the second quarter of this year. You will also see that in the results, the OE result is lower than in the first quarter, and this is not only the market.
Those were also our clear and decisive actions that we have made, and the very important news, and Campbell will give more color on that. It will already improve our OE result starting from the third quarter and will also position ourselves better for the long term. Even in that challenging market environment, we will do better in OE already in the third quarter. On a positive note, and this goes with our strategic execution in our core business, we have expanded our capacities in the fast-growing markets. We are in the process and progressing on this capacity expansion in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, for example, and also in Vietnam. We have grown our business in that region. You will see that in our notes on our regional sales analysis, that we were strongly growing in the Middle East.
On the basis of our Praxis acquisition, but also in Asia, we also received nice orders from Latin America that we can show in the third quarter. So, those are the strategic and also the operational activities and measures that we were setting in the first half of the year, included an additional expense in the second quarter, but we will benefit from that already starting with the first quarter. Also, as part of our strategy of the core business, driving innovation, working on new technology, being innovative, securing our technological leadership, we increased our R&D expenses. We have added a new machine for the 3D metal printing, a new powder grade. This should secure our capabilities and in going forward and better position us. Those were the operational topics.
On the strategy, we talked about that already in March, that we have eliminated the 50% target, which does not mean that diversification doesn't play a role for us. Not at all. We have deepened our strategic recalibration process. We are looking in many new markets and applications in the first half of this year, and the primary focus remains on opportunities in the energy transition, but I will give you the one or the other example afterwards, what we have done in this strategic process, especially also organically, and will also followed by targeted acquisitions in order to diversify from our core business and work also on the second pillar of our strategy, and all of that, of course, resulted also in organizational adaptation and strengthening of the team.
Predominantly, the measures that we have taken also in the OE division, in the first half of this year, and especially in the second quarter, but also our strategic setup was strengthened and is more or less rounding up our operational priorities and strategic recalibration. We will rely on that and refer to that throughout our presentations, where we have made progress, what we have in mind. But now let's discuss the quarterly highlights. On the second quarter, and then in total, the half year one highlights. Sales have been with EUR 288 million very close to the record sales of the previous year. But the split between the U.S. markets and the international markets changed.
We have been in the position to almost compensate the shortfall on the U.S. sales with significant business growth on the international markets. The bookings have been up in the first quarter by 2%, and you may recall our Q1 call when I indicated higher bookings in the second quarter. Those bookings came plus 9% in the second quarter, and Campbell will give more color on that later on. On the Group EBIT, the EUR 36.6 million in the first half of this year is well below the previous year, and this is all attributed to our OE division. AMS continued to perform excellent with EBIT margins clearly above 20%. For the first half of the year, almost 23%, which is an outstanding performance.
More information on that also when we discuss the EBIT segment, segmental EBIT, in more detail later on. The good news is on the cash flow generation and also on the balance sheet. You may remember that I indicated back in May a stronger cash flow generation for the second quarter, and what I promised, we delivered. It was excellently high, EUR 25 million in the second quarter. It had some timing impacts, therefore, the first quarter was lower, but the almost EUR 28 million is, despite an earnings shortfall compared to the previous year, a higher figure than it was in the previous year. So we are going to generate strong cash flows in the first half of the year.
And the net debt therefore only increased slightly, although we made a significant dividend payment of almost EUR 32 million in May, and we will also discuss that in more detail later on. Equity ratio remains strong with 54%. Gearing ratio only slightly increased compared to the beginning of the year, more or less remained the same, although we made the dividend payment. And as I already flagged it, regional expansion in growth markets and also strategy recalibration. Let's discuss the one or the other example out of that. Strategic expansion in our core business into growth regions can be summarized in three categories. First of all, new technologies. We have broadened our well completion product portfolio. The Split Flow while drilling technology is building a momentum in the Middle East.
Clearly, new technologies, broadening our product portfolio is one part of our strategic expansion. Second, we expanded our customer base in the first half of the year in the Middle East and also in Asia. Going forward, also in Latin America, which will be reflected in the third quarter. This is then combined also with a capacity expansion that we indicated already earlier this year in the Middle East, but also in Vietnam. When we talk about Vietnam, Vietnam received, besides many awards, for example, the South Asia Business Award, also the certification of being a Great Place to Work, which on the one hand, demonstrates our culture within SBO, and on the other hand, also the outstanding job that Vietnam is doing, their passion, their dedication, and this is now also officially certified.
Which is perfect for us, as the Vietnam expansion is also one part of our strategy. More on the growth initiatives, on our diversification efforts, the 3D metal printing that we are continuously talking about. We have added another machine, with another powder grade added to our range, and you see that this powder range is predominantly also for outside of our core business, for products in challenging environments such as aerospace, motorsports, and semiconductor industries. So we are also delivering on our organic growth path, and this is continued by a continuous momentum that we are building also on the geothermal markets. We talked about Fervo, the operator in advanced and enhanced geothermal systems in the US, that we were building a specific type of block for them.
We have now produced a second type of block, custom-made, for that operator, which gives us a further momentum also in geothermal. And we also have successfully supplied our Circ-Sub technology for one of the longest and deepest geothermal drilling projects in Europe. So you see, we are acting on the geothermal markets, on a global base. This is now the summary of the reflection of the first half of the year, the financial highlights, the business highlights, this one, especially in the second quarter. And with that, I hand now over to Campbell to give some more insights on the market environments. Please.
Thank you very much, Klaus, and a good morning from my side, everybody, this morning for our conference call today. Let's talk about the market to start with. I think this should be a familiar slide to everybody, where we outline the development of the global rig count since the beginning of 2023. Let's start with the U.S. rig count in the first instance, which is on the left-hand side. By the end of the first half of this year, the rig count had decreased to 581 rigs. This is a drop from last year at this time by about 14%. Now, as we talked about in detail last quarter, the U.S. rig market has suffered from a number of consolidation or M&A activities from the operators.
We've seen a lot of them, their focus now is on strong capital discipline, not so much on market share, but getting a return from their business. Even more recently, we've seen that this M&A activity has extended to the large drilling contractors, and just a few weeks ago, H&P announced a $2 billion acquisition of KCA Deutag, which is planned to close at the end of this year, so you can see that the consolidation theme is continuing on, so because of this, we continue to experience an increasingly competitive environment, particularly in our U.S. oilfield rental market, with lower customer demand and tightening prices. It's good to see that in the first few weeks of Q3 and into early August, the number of U.S. rigs has stabilized at about 588.
One point worth noting is U.S. crude oil production has continued to grow and averaged 13.3 million barrels per day in July, which is a record for the U.S. Looking on the right-hand side at the international rig count, well, the outlook for the international rig count, on the back of what the international drilling contractor says, is that it should remain at a very high level through 2024 and into 2025, citing particularly strong demand in the offshore segment and the expectation of continued high utilization rates and rising day rates. They've been quoting utilization rates that are in the high 80s to high 90s. Even just over a week ago, the Big Three offshore drillers, that's Transocean, Noble Corporation, and Valaris, all reported strong offshore fundamentals and a robust outlook, some even stretching that out to 2030.
So this growth continues to be driven by the offshore projects in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, which of course underpins our growth strategy in the Middle East and in Asia. So while general market conditions are intact, the overall spending behavior has been moderating since the beginning of the year. But remember, we're coming off a very, very high level in 2023. Looking at the chart on the left-hand side, this is the updated projections from the IEA, which were published this month in August. Global oil demand is projected to grow to 103 million barrels per day in 2024, and over 104 million barrels per day in 2025.
Just as we discussed back in May, the long-term fundamentals for our core business continue to remain favorable, and thanks to increasing demand, investment in the sector is continuing to grow. Which leads us on to the chart on the right-hand side. After an already exceptional year in 2023 of 11% growth, global E&P spending is still forecast to grow, but albeit at a reduced level of 3% versus 5%, that was previously noted. Again, this growth is driven by the international and offshore markets, led by the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, at 5% growth in spending, while the U.S. spending is projected to decline by about 3%. Now, let's look a little more specifically at our business, and let's start at the bookings.
The bookings for the first half of this year were EUR 248.6 million. This was at a good level, but of course, it was less than the exceptional level we experienced last year of nearly EUR 300 million. On a quarter-by-quarter basis, the bookings development showed a positive development. We had 1.7% increase in Q1 and nearly a 2% increase in Q2, but you can see that overall, the bookings are moderating compared to the high level that we experienced last year because our customers were, at that point in time, heavily trying to secure capacity. Next slide, I just want to look at the sales development of for the group and for both segments. The top segment is the AMS segment, just in case it's not clear.
So at EUR 288 million, the sales remained at a high level for the first half of the year, only 2% down from the previous year. Sales in the AMS segment, they remained, high, slightly, slightly down at 3%, year on year, but still what I would consider at very solid levels. The OE sales were stable year on year, while we had lower sales in the U.S. market, particularly in the rental business. This was offset by the higher sales in the international growth markets. And with that, I'll pass over to Klaus again.
... Campbell, thank you. Let's now talk about our earnings performance. And as I already indicated it, the EBITDA and also the EBIT is well below the first half of the previous year, and this is only related to the oilfield equipment division. AMS continues to be on a very high level. EBIT even increased from 35 million to 35.6 million with a slight reduction in terms of sales, as you have already seen it. And the oilfield equipment division had a significant shortfall in the comparison to the previous year, which is predominantly due to the weaker U.S. markets, the related pricing pressure, and the lower demand, but also to some activities that we have taken in the second quarter of this year.
And Campbell will very soon elaborate on that also in more detail. AMS continues to be on this very high level, and this is then resulting in an EBITDA of EUR 53.1 million, which is a margin of 18.4% and an EBIT of 36.6 million, which is a margin of almost 13%. Same development also on the level of profit before tax. The financial result is more negative than it was in the previous year, where it still was positive due to the net cash position that we had at that time. Profit before tax and also profit after tax are following the same path as it is with EBITDA and also with EBIT.
The profit before tax, so the pre-tax margin, is still double digit with 12%, but as a result of the OE earnings shortfall below the previous year.
Thank you, Klaus. So, Klaus has already talked about the overall EBIT levels in a bit of detail, and what I don't intend to do is talk about the AMS levels. Klaus gave a very good overview there. I really wanted now to talk about OE, where we experienced our significant shortfall in EBIT. Now, Klaus intimated at the start of the call, on the first slide, some of the issues, but I wanted to give a little bit more color on this. The EBIT decline in OE this year is a large part the result of a weaker and competitive U.S. market in the rental business, and we've already set the context of where the U.S. market is at the moment.
Next to this market decline, we also saw a less favorable product mix, this year, and this was linked to a lower share of project sales that we have seen at least this year so far, but we also incurred additional costs, which led to, or lowered our result further, so let me explain a little bit about that. Since taking over responsibility for the business at the beginning of the year, specifically in OE, we conducted a deeper dive into some of the company's performance, and there was clearly things in there that we didn't like and that needed to be fixed, and they needed to be fixed quickly, so we took decisive action, and we invested into upgrading our rental fleet, which caused additional costs related to our repair and maintenance.
We improved our operational processes, which included, among others, IT expenses and upgrading our ERP system. And last but not least, more significantly, we also implemented quite comprehensive organizational changes in our management and some key functions in the U.S. rental business. And with these changes, we will bring much more focus towards the sales and marketing efforts in our business, improve our overall operational efficiency, which in turn will improve our service quality to our customers. So these fixes, of course, they incurred cost. This cost amounted to a mid-single-digit EURO million amount, but with these measures, we will clearly improve our results in the OE business and see a positive EBIT figure as early as Q3 and going forward.
Thank you, Campbell. Let me continue with our cash flow and liquidity figures. As I already flagged it, and here you see it on the graph, the free cash flow generation in the first half of the year was a very strong one. Despite the reduction in earnings, the free cash flow improved to almost EUR 28 million, which is slightly higher than in the same period of the previous year, due to a lower working capital that was needed in generating those sales and earnings. We have especially seen a reduction in inventories. Although the U.S. dollar in the first half of the year got stronger, inventory decreased.
Also, the timing effects from the first quarter on the accounts receivable are now back in order, and therefore, we generated, as I said it before, EUR 25 million in the second quarter. But the normalized figure for the first half of the year, EUR 28 million, means we are also executing in our strategy for our core business, where the ultimate goal is generate strong cash flows. The EUR 28 million in the first half of this year is already a higher amount than the full year of 2022. This also means that with the strong cash flow generation, we have almost earned the dividend payment that we have made back in May for the result of 2023, as the net debt only slightly increased from EUR 92 million to EUR 96 million.
And it continues with a very favorable gearing ratio of just 20.9%. And these solid figures in terms of liquidity also continue on the balance sheet with a further slight increase of the equity ratio compared to the beginning of the year, although we made this dividend payment and a high amount of cash. Which will also allow us to continue on our strategy for the core business, expanding in new regions and markets, increasing the capacities, but also in our building up a new business segment organically and also potentially inorganically. The ESG figures that are provided twice a year, let me share them with you very, very briefly, just some key takeaways. There is a very comprehensive report, also in our half-year figures, in many additional ESG key figures.
What you need to know is that Scope one, Scope two more or less remained the same. Scope one was reduced. This is something that we can direct control and made further actions on it. And also the total energy consumption slightly decreased by 2%. The share of our renewable electricity is continues to be high with 46%. We have installed many solar panels now on our various facilities. We'll continue with that also when we expand our capacities. So this is one snapshot of the key ESG figures for the first half year. And now let's move before we get into the Q&A, also to the outlook. As Campbell said, and explained it in very detail, the different environments and developments on the key markets.
The industry fundamentals remain positive, especially for the international and offshore markets. We have seen a moderating of this growth because the spending outlook at the end of last year was a bit more optimistic than now, mid-year of this year, but still a growth in E&P spending, driven by the international markets, and a different picture on the U.S market. As it was mentioned by you, Campbell, 14% rig count decrease on a year-on-year, even 24% from the beginning of 2023. We see that this market will for this year, for the foreseeable future, continue to be challenging, but the measures, and that's important now, that we have taken in the second quarter, will lead to improved, clearly positive results in the OE division already in the third quarter.
The expansion to the growth markets is a key priority, is part of our strategy. Capacity expansion in the Middle East and also in Asia, and also the continuous growth and broadening of our market reach and increase of our customer base, which we really also see in Latin America. On the strategy recalibration, as I said at the beginning, it continues to be the path, organically and also inorganically. Organically, geothermal, CCS, and 3D metal printing. I gave you already examples of activities in the second quarter. Inorganic, we are looking, and we are widening and broadening also our funnel for potential acquisition targets that also are close to our capabilities, that we are already having.
We have refocused and recalibrated that, from a narrow view last year to a more broader view this year, to gain traction also in interesting markets. Thank you for that. That was our summary of the first half of the year. We are now ready for Q&A. Looking forward to your questions. Please raise your hands, and Campbell and myself will be happy to answer them.
Yeah.
The first question comes from Hauck Aufhäuser. Cornelis, please.
Yeah. I don't know if you can hear me now? Yes.
Just let me know, yeah.
Yeah.
Ah, perfect. Okay, so I would have a couple, if I may. So first would be: What drove the increase in the order books? Was that more AMS related, or was it OE related already? And then I was wondering if you could provide some more color regarding the expected savings on the organizational measures and operational measures you have taken. Maybe a precise figure on the costs related to this in Q2 would be helpful as well. Thank you.
Campbell.
Okay, Cornelis, thank you for the questions. Let me answer both of them. On the first question, what drove the increase in the bookings? It was driven predominantly by AMS, and it was to do with a large material order that we received from a customer, which will be delivered in 2025. In terms of the costs in relation to the actions that we took, I think I already explained to you that it was in this mid-single euro digit level. Hopefully, that covers it for you. Thank you.
Yeah. So can we expect further costs related to acquisition throughout the year, or is Praxis now fully integrated and no further cost on that?
Yes, I know where you're coming from. When you saw the slide, this acquisition-related costs, which is predominantly the expenses, depreciation and amortization of intangible assets. This figure is clearly going down. It was front-loaded in the first half of the year, and this is also something. But this is a very low, single-digit million EUR amount, and this is a significantly lower figure going forward.
Okay, thank you. I'll get back in line.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Richard, you have some questions.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?
Good morning, Richard. Good morning, yes. We can hear you.
Excellent. All right, thank you. Thank you for taking my question. So first question is on AMS, where margins were higher sequentially in the quarter. And what drove this? Was this more sort of better pricing coming through internationally, or was it just a better revenue mix? And then if I could also ask, how does that compare to the OE segment in the US? Do prices still remain under pressure in that market, and have you seen any changes to your market share there? And then a sort of a third question, maybe just on the bookings. Positive to see those bookings increasing sequentially. We have seen a more sort of normalization of those booking figures. Do you see this sort of level as a sort of normal level going forwards?
Interested just to hear, sort of, say what you're seeing across the Q3, seeing as we're sort of two months into it now. Thank you.
So maybe I elaborate on the margins, and yes, they were very, very high, Richard. It has so many influencing figures, the EBIT margin, from one quarter to the other quarter, because it is also related to the factory output or to the sales. Therefore, an explanation of one percentage going up and going down is not even so easy because it's in the second quarter, we definitely had good productive hours. Pricing was not the impact. I would also say that the product mix did not play a major role in AMS. The product mix is more related to the OE business when we do rental, when we do sales. The almost 24% seems also very high, but the sales were a little bit lower.
When you put it in relation to the factory output, it is somehow normalized also to the first quarter. In terms of market share, Campbell, you may respond to it.
Yeah, in terms of the, you talked about the OE market share and the-
AMS.
And-
AMS.
In terms of market share for AMS and what's happening, the market share, we're still maintaining our market share. Just as you mentioned, what we're seeing is a moderation of the extremely high level of bookings that we saw last year. As customers were concerned about capacity, both in terms of machine capacity and material being consumed last year, they've moderated this, and they've pulled back slightly. But we still see it at a good level. We've got to remember, 2023 was quite exceptional, so we're coming down to something I think that's hopefully much more sustainable going forward. And I think you mentioned in terms of OE pricing, just as we explained before, in the U.S., under the rental market, yes, the pricing pressure is still very significant there, given the consolidation that we're seeing in the marketplace with our customers.
So, you know, the levers they've got to pull on is obviously sweating out their assets and driving suppliers like us down on the cost for the meantime.
That's very helpful. Thank you. And just on the market share in OE, has that changed at all?
No, the market share in OE in the U.S. specifically, no, that hasn't changed too much.
Great. Thank you very much.
Oleg. Oleg, good morning.
Morning, Oleg.
Yes, good morning, and I hope you can hear me well.
Yeah, we hear you very well.
I have two questions, and I apologize for the first question to be rather long. But you spoke about this development, but I would still maybe would like to ask for more details on the segment's development in the second quarter, and specifically about AMS. Maybe you could explain us in more details what was the reason for the drop of sales in the AMS. I'm talking about quarter and quarter comparison, and what has helped SBO to improve the segment's EBIT margin in the second quarter. I know that you don't provide financial guidance, but hopefully you could share your thoughts about AMS sales evolution in the second half of the year.
On the OE segment, I understand that Praxis, sorry, has had a positive impact on sales in Q2, while revenues generated in North America declined quarter on quarter. Provided that the U.S. market remains challenging, would you expect the contribution of Praxis to offset the headwinds in the U.S. and keep the segment sales at levels comparable to the previous two quarters? That would be my first question. Secondly, on the OE segment, you mentioned that the measures taken in the second quarter should help improve the segment's results already in Q3 and Q4. Do you refer to an improvement of sales evolution or margins or both?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess you do not refer to a quarter-on-quarter comparison, but rather to the previous quarters, like the second half of last year or first half of this year, when you expect these improvements to happen. Thank you.
Let me start on the sales for AMS. Yes, you're right, the sales were down slightly, but it wasn't down to any attributable factor or an overall reduction. We always are in negotiations with customers, and occasionally, we accommodate pushouts. And I think predominantly some of these were pushouts into the second half of the year in terms of the orders. So nothing significant or nothing major that came to this reduction in those sales for AMS.
Oleg, on the earnings development, as I tried to answer it already with Richard, when you relate the EBIT to the sales, and the sales were a little bit lower, the predominant factor was that the factory output was higher than the sales. And if you would relate it to the factory output, the margin development would make a bit more sense. Of course, there are also influencing factors with exchange rate, where the sales have been produced, et cetera, et cetera. But all in all, we are developing in AMS in the past couple of quarters in the EBIT margins of above 20%-
Mm-hmm.
Therefore, 21 this quarter, 23% that quarter, does not move the needle so much in terms of that something in the market or in the business changed that would allow us to upgrade or downgrade that figure. Is that helpful for you, Oleg?
Of course, it is.
Good.
But, you know, in the second quarter, what happened is that you had an improvement of margins while sales were going a different direction, and that's why-
Yeah
... I want it to be.
Exactly, but the factory output did not change that much like the sales changed. And especially in manufacturing facilities, the output is even the more decisive factor for a margin than the sales number.
Understood.
On the OE, yes, you were. One of your question was Praxis. Yes, in the first half of the year, it was almost like that Praxis could compensate, and not only Praxis, could compensate the shortfall coming from the US, but it was not only Praxis. We also generated sales in other areas in the OE segment, which is in line with our strategic execution on the core business. And going forward, for the third quarter, I expect higher sales and higher profits.
I think, yeah, you, the last question was directly related to the changes that we've made in the organization. Will that increase sales, and will that increase margins? Yes, it will.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Cornelis. Cornelis, again.
Yes, I would have another one, if I may.
Sure.
And that is, are you concerned about the recent drop in the international rig count? Maybe drop is too strong a word, but the slight decline. And then also, could you provide us maybe with a split between your offshore and onshore exposure, if possible?
Thanks, Cornelis. The recent drop in the rig count, I think it dropped 23 rigs recently, and I checked that out to understand it. Overall, eighteen of those rigs dropped from Indonesia, so for me, this is more noise. Every month, rigs come on and off of contract, and they get moved to new locations, so it's not something we are at all concerned about and just see it as part of the normal course of business. Eighteen in one country under one contract dropped off, and that's a little bit exceptional, but well, I'm sure we're going to see those replaced very, very quickly because of the strength of the international market.
Onshore, offshore.
Onshore, offshore is a much more difficult one.
Yeah
... for us to really give an answer to. I wouldn't like to give you any guidance on that because we sell equipment to our customers, and our customers then take that equipment, and they use it onshore or offshore. And we, it's not necessarily... We don't necessarily get to know whether it's being used onshore or offshore. So anything I could tell you could potentially be very misleading.
Mm.
All right?
All right. That's helpful. Thank you.
There is one question from [Radim].
Hello.
Hello, [Radim]. Hi.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe just try to understand better the situation in the U.S., because you mentioned that actually the production in the U.S. is record high, and they have been declining the rig count for more than a year now. So shall we, like, understand it, that they, the market basically is structurally different, that because of the consolidation with lower rig count, they just do much more, they are much more efficient, they can drill more wells? So this would be like a structural shift that basically we shouldn't expect much of an increase again of the rig count going forward because just the U.S. guys are very, very efficient?
Thank you for the question, Radim. Let me try to answer. I think, you're right. Let me give you an example, that, ten years ago, there were, I think, 1,800 rigs active in the U.S. market. Today, there's only a third of that, but when you look at the actual footage that's drilled, the footage today that's drilled is even more. So really, the mantra is we're definitely doing much more with less. The equipment is becoming much more powerful, it's becoming much, much more efficient. And you can even see through new drilling techniques where we have been involved in BICO with drilling what's called a U-shape.
So instead of drilling maybe two or three directional wells and completing two or three wells, you drill from one pad, and you drill a U, which has extended laterals that come back on each other. So it means you're only drilling one well, you're only completing one well, but you should be getting the same level of production from that before as well. And on top of that, wells have got longer. I think an average well now takes fifteen days to drill in 2024 , whereas ten years ago it was thirty-five days. So there's a shift and a change in the dynamic, for sure. We're doing much more with less. The good thing from our perspective is to do much more with less, you need better tools, better material, higher quality equipment, and that's exactly the niche that we fit into.
Hopefully, that answers your question.
Yeah, I mean, it was. But then I would expect that actually, you are able to actually maintain the margins because you should be able to supply, you know, better. Even with smaller markets, like more competition, you're, like, supposed to have a better quality equipment. And I'm just surprised that you have got the same sales in the OE division, but you have generated basically a loss. Yeah, so it doesn't. Something doesn't fit here-
Yeah
... in this kind of narrative.
If I may add additional color to that, the loss situation in the second quarter is predominantly driven also to the actions that we were setting, and it is not only the market. So when we talk about and look at the OE performance previous year, this year, you have, on the one hand, the market, and on the other hand, you have some activities and actions that we have taken. There was definitely also a reduction in the activity from last year to this year. Campbell was referring to the structural changes from ten years ago, eighteen hundred rigs to less than six hundred rigs. So one of the drivers of the reduced oilfield equipment performance coming from the U.S. was definitely the weaker U.S. market. That hits you more in the rental business.
This is a matter of fact. Why? Because the rental business, you have the fleet available, you have it, you provide it to your customers, and if everybody has this fleet available, operators or companies like us are prepared to rent those, this fleet also at lower prices before you do not have any rental income. So we have seen that, and we have noticed that, back in 2015, 2016, also back in 2020, when there is a reduced activity on the one hand, there is kind of a fight for market shares because the assets are available, and there is also the habit of the players in the industry to make some pricing concessions.
Then you have volume combined with price, the less favorable product mix that we also had, that I also expect to get better in the third quarter. The Q2 performance of OE just standalone should not be seen as this is now our operating performance-
Absolutely
... going forward. I think that's very important to mention. And we have done a lot of things also to upgrade our fleet, which should help us in going forward. I hope this gives more color now.
And, was there some kind of, like, a write-down of assets that impacted the second quarter that you would just, you know-
No
... idle?
No. No, not at all. Not at all. It was an upgrade, actually, of assets, combined with R&D, IT expenses, but it was not at all a write-off of assets.
Mm-hmm, and theoretically, if the market keeps, let's say, declining because of this efficiency in the U.S., could you move part of the assets out of the U.S. to other markets?
Potentially, yes.
Or they could you-
Yeah. Potentially, yes. Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. That's possible.
Okay.
Good.
Thanks for the answer.
Very welcome, Radim.
Thank you.
I think those were all questions. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your interest.
Thank you very much.
Also for your excellent questions. Appreciated it.
Mm-hmm.
Wishing you a good day, and seeing you next time. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Thanks a lot.
Have a good day. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.